sail_ooc | TEST DRIVE MEME #8

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TEST DRIVE MEME #8

1. but times have changed for sailors these days

[you wake up.

it doesn't matter where you were before. going to bed? dying? opening the door to face a great evil? same result. you wake up in a soft bed with starched sheets in a cool, darkened room, sunlight peeking out from behind thick curtains. maybe you're alone; maybe you aren't. maybe you immediately notice the folded paper on the bedside table near your head. if you don't, you better fix that real quick: you won't be able to even open the door before you read it.

the note itself is written in a neat hand on white card stock; there is a stylized logo of a ship with the words SERENA ETERNA printed underneath. the note reads as follows:

Dear Passenger(s),

As your cruise director, it is my great honor to welcome you aboard the Serena Eterna, your destination for fun and adventure! We know you could have chosen any cruise line for your vacation, and we're very grateful you chose ours! On behalf of the Captain, I would like to assure each and every passenger that will we do whatever it takes to fulfill all your needs and desires during your journey with us.

At your earliest possible convenience, please attend the mandatory lifeboat drill by the end of the day. I'm sure everyone is very eager to get started on all the fun and sun, but safety always comes first! You can find your life jacket in your cabin's closet; carry it to your assigned muster station on deck one, where I will take you through the drill. If you can't find me in the crowd, just look for the gal with the winning smile!

See You Real Soon!

Sincerely,
Gal Friday

you walk to deck one. you have no other choice: every time you try to step in a direction some unseen being considers "not towards deck one," you find your legs no longer move, staying stock still, frozen. whether compelled quickly by curiosity, or delayed by pure stubbornness, the result is the same, and you are left milling around with other similarly curious or stubborn people.

you see someone in uniform near the front of the crowd. she seems to be a gal, but is missing the winning smile, along with most of her other features. she seems to see you, though, rushing to your side and placing a lei around your neck with great formality. a voice, cheery but artificial, sees to come from nowhere and everywhere.]

Welcome aboard! I'm so happy you could join us!

[you touch the lei. rooster feathers, lotus seeds, and a carved circle of something white and hard, linked onto a silk string.

after the drill is completed, you are seemingly free to go. or, well, your legs work, now. and maybe that's as good as it's gonna get.]

2. tried to amend my carnivorous habit

[the space inside John's where the piano normally sits is mysteriously vacant today. as a matter of fact, the entire piano bar is silent, without so much as a muzak-inspired interpretation of Uptown Girl to hum along to.

the piano itself seems to have disappeared... for the most part. unlucky, unsuspecting passengers who enter the cabin hallway, step out onto the lower decks, or find themselves in one of the other narrow corridors of the ship, may find themselves suddenly facing down a silent, unmoving grand piano. it takes up too much space to squeeze by comfortably...

and then, the cover lifts, exposing what looks to be... teeth?

yeah. yeah, those are its teeth. and it's coming right for you.]

3. that American creation on which I feed

[it had been a difficult October for bahamanuel, the bahamanal. its territory had changed utterly, becoming alien and strange. new predators were encroaching on its hunting grounds. its position in the natural order is under threat. and so, nature finds a way.

the old timers know to be wary of large piles of clothes, but even they won’t think to look twice at the tiny lumps of garish kids’ swimsuits and sundresses - until they feel something latch onto their leg, and then several more things, and anywhere from ten to twenty balled up clothes piles try to take down their prey.

the young must learn how to hunt, after all.]

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Before Karkat would open his eyes, he is in a deep sleep. A rarity for someone with his level of chronic insomnia, but the dream bubbles the meteor would pass through from time to time do make the experience significantly more pleasant than the vast wall of writhing tentacles that would greet him normally.

This dream bubble feels significant to Karkat. He has finally said his piece to Terezi. Maybe put his foot in his mouth with her once again, but at least there’s some sense of closure there. Maybe she can finally forget him and move on. She’d be... better that way. And he has his meet-up with Meenah to look forward to. Things might not be great, but they are looking up.

So when he wakes up, not on the meteor, but on a massive ship?

Well, first he just assumes he’s still asleep. Then pinches himself to make sure. Hm, still here. Ok, fine, he slaps himself across the cheek.
Ouch.
So this is not a dream.

He gets up and tries the door. Locked. He rattles the doorknob. “STRIDER? STRIDER?! IF THIS IS SOME KIND OF SICK PRANK, IT IS NOT FUCKING FUNNY. OPEN UP.”
Nothing.

“I’M SURE YOU’RE ALL LAUGHING YOUR ASSES OFF OUT THERE,” he tries again. “YES, I KNOW, MY MISERY IS THE EPITOME OF ENTERTAINMENT COMPARED TO WHATEVER VAPID BULLSHIT YOU WOULD OTHERWISE BE DOING. WRITING OUTDATED RAPS ABOUT SOME HUMAN THAT IS NO LONGER PRESIDENT, MAYBE. I DON’T REALLY CARE WHAT YOU DO. I WILL LISTEN TO A THOUSAND OF YOUR MOST HEINOUS WORKS IF YOU OPEN THE DOOR RIGHT FUCKING NOW.”

He’s starting to panic. He can feel himself hyperventilating. He shoves the door. Nothing. He kicks the door. Nothing.

“OF FUCKING COURSE!” he shouts and turns away from the door. “ALMOST TWO SWEEPS ON AN INTERDIMENSIONAL, TIME-TRANSGRESSIVE MISSION TO SAVE MULTIPLE UNIVERSES, AND I STARVE TO DEATH TRAPPED IN A TINY ROOM BECAUSE OF A LOCKED DOOR. THIS IS WHAT WOULD HAPPEN. WHY ON ALTERNIA DID I EVER EXPECT ANYTHING ELSE?!”

During his dramatic, teary-eyed flailing, he knocks a piece of paper off the table. He pauses mid-mental-breakdown to read it.

“...WHAT THE FUCK,” he mumbles under his breath. Probably still loud enough to be heard a mile away. Karkat has a very powerful diaphragm.

A bit shocked by the surrealness of this experience (though honestly not TOO shocked because, with the direction his life has taken in general, he isn’t that unused to the multiverse giving him personally a giant middle finger), he grabs the stupid life vest and is finally able to leave the room.

He tries to walk in different directions and realizes he can’t. Fine, that might as well happen. A woman with no mouth puts a fucking necklace on him. That might as well happen too.

For someone as verbose as Karkat normally is, he stands in stunned silence during the drill. He isn’t even paying attention. He’s just mentally considering which specific acts he must have committed in his past life to generate the kind of punishment he has to endure on a daily basis.

So, yeah, obviously, Eridan hears the shouting waaaaaaaaay before he ever sees Karkat. That's kind of how it is with him -- always yelling, always shouting, unable to clam up even when it's obvious that he's so far outta his goddamn depth he might as well be deep sea diving with a snorkel.

Normally, he'd just say as much. Shout back at the top of his considerable expanding and collapsing blah blah system, kar you don't knoww wwhat you're evven talkin' about, shut the fuck up, bet you havven't evven mustered yet, you leiless bastard!

Instead, he, uh. He lurks. Like some kinda predatory shark, swimming through Karkat's wake to avoid detection from a smaller, less knowledgeable and stupidly loud fish. A bahanamal, maybe, if he's feeling generous enough to compare that literal sack of polyester to his own formidable stalking capabilities.

All of this to say, by the time Karkat is done with the muster drill, staring gobsmacked at the faceless broad, Eridan has found a casual, slightly out-of-the-way spot to loiter. His figure isn't as imposing without his cape -- but it's downright fuckin' gutted by the fact that he's wearing a Tommy Bahama button-up over his traditional (if suspiciously cropped) shirt. Yes, the one with the long sleeves.

He thinks he's being very subtle. As usual, he is his own most unreliable narrator.

When the drill is done and Karkat has regained control of his movements again, he groans and turns... and freezes in place.

No. Fuck no. Of all the frothing jackasses he could run into, why did it have to be this one?

Karkat has half a mind to just nope right off the ship. It would probably be significantly more tolerable than having a single conversation with this pretentious idiot.

Instead, he just says, “ERIDAN I CAN FUCKING SEE YOU OVER THERE.”

Eridan winces, 60% mortification and 40% at just the sheer fuckin' volume of Karkat's voice. It's been just long enough that he'd almost forgotten how goddamn shrill this unbearable motherfucker is! But not nearly long enough for him to forget the last time he actually saw Karkat. It was... well, right about when he got brutally bisected by the fashion hag.

(For reasons that are! Absolutely! Not relevant here!)

He immediately regains (some) of his composure, throwing a hand up to lean against the wall as if he expected to be caught out. He did not. He didn't even expect to be noticed, to be honest!

What does a guy say when confronted by (the doomed copy of) a close personal friend who you closely and personally ruined the life of?

"H-Hey."

Nailed it.

Yep. Eridan looks about as smooth as he remembers. (Which is to say, not at all).

Karkat gives an exasperated sigh and puts a finger to his temple. “OKAY, LET’S JUST IGNORE FOR A SECOND THE FACT THAT YOU WERE APPARENTLY STALKING ME WHILE I WAS VERY DEEP IN THE MIDST OF A VERY PERSONAL AND COMPLETELY JUSTIFIED PSYCHOLOGICAL BREAKDOWN.”

He looks at Eridan. “WHICH VERSION ARE YOU? BECAUSE I HAVE SEEN ABOUT TEN MILLION ERIDANS AT THIS POINT, ALL FROM DIFFERENT TIMELINES WITH VARIOUS LEVELS OF SUCKING. AM I TALKING TO A SMART, NICE ERIDAN WHO DID NOT DECIDE TO ATTACK HIS OWN FRIENDS? PLEASE LET ME BE TALKING TO ONE OF THOSE.”

He notices the yellow of Eridan’s eyes and can see that he’s not dead. The Eridan from his timeline is very much dead. (Or, can he even say that’s his timeline anymore? Is he now in a doomed timeline? He isn’t happy about that thought).

That's the funny thing about dying in game-based universes: it's basically meaningless.

As usual, Karkat begins talking and Eridan almost immediately tunes him out, squinting instead at the... differences he thinks he's seeing. Is Karkat... taller? Is his voice ever-so-slightly more restrained? (Or does he just sound like he's been tired for way longer than Eridan was alive for...)

He hears the "attack his own friends" part, though, loud and clear, and he'd love it if nobody else heard it, either! Not that that's likely, since Karkat won't shut up!

"Fifteen minutes of blissful peace an' quiet before you opened your mouth and ruined it," he scoffs. "I'm a doomed dreamself the same as evvery other sad sack on this barge, does it really matter wwhich kind of dreamself I am??? And if I am one'a these so-called nice vversions of me, you comin' in hot wwith your platonic distaste for me is pretty fuckin' rude, don't you think??? More rude than just, fuckin', followwin' a guy to make sure he musters appropriately!"

“WOW, SO I’M THE ASSHOLE NOW, OK, GOT IT,” Karkat rolls his eyes.

“THANKS FOR NOT FUCKING ANSWERING MY QUESTION. BUT IF YOU DO KNOW WHAT I’M TALKING ABOUT, THEN YOU KNOW JUST AS WELL AS I DO THAT YOU ARE COMPLETELY FULL OF SHIT RIGHT NOW. AND YOU CLEARLY LEARNED NOTHING. SO. I HAVE NOTHING TO DO WITH YOU.”

He abruptly turns and starts walking away, keeping his shoulders stiff so he doesn’t start trembling.

Wow! Wow!! What a fucking rude asshole! Not even briefly considering the notion that maybe he's spent the last couple of months in deep, personal reflection? Not even going to ask if maybe he's had time to decide that maybe he did make one or two mistakes, which were exacerbated by Sollux and Feferi being total douchebags to him???

Here he is, standing in stupid shitty human vacation-wear and Karkat isn't even going to humor him?!!!!

"Wwoww! Reel fuckin' classy, Kar!" He immediately (and obliviously) begins marching right after him. "You barely evven let me get one fuckin' sentence out an' then you storm off to go, wwhere, exactly? You don't evven knoww wwhere anythin' is, meanwwhile I knoww all the goddamn ins and outs of this place. Wwhat I'm sayin' is -- "

JOG JOG JOG now they're in step, in sync, look at them, two trolls together, burying hatchets!!!

"-- I'vve got vvalue, evven if you obvviously don't see it." He says this like he's doing Karkat a favor...

“LITERALLY ANYWHERE IS BETTER THAN THIS!” Karkat snaps back at him. He’s actually mad. Not like, whiney fake mad like usual. Karkat has mastered the art of seeming more angry than he actually is, so the fact that the feelings really are hitting him so hard this time is a problem. He seriously can’t believe the way Eridan has managed to twist this whole conversation. It’s like they’re in two completely different planes of reality.

He walks over to the deck and looks out at the water. If he does jump, he won’t be able to get back on the ship, and there doesn’t look like there’s anything out there for miles. If he drowns, will he just wake back up on the meteor? Or will he be actually dead? If he really is a doomed version of himself that’s split off from the main timeline like Eridan said, then isn’t staying alive just prolonging the inevitable? Does he really want to be trapped in some pointless meandering existence, filled with burning rage at a former friend who refuses to take any sort of responsibility for how bad he messed up?

He wants to cry. He can feel tears at the back of his eyes. He can’t cry. Eridan will see the color, and he is NOT ready for THAT conversation. Instead he just nervously gnaws at his knuckle while gazing out at the water.

Eridan opens his big fat mouth,

and finds that nothing actually comes out.

He knows technically, this Karkat isn't necessarily the same doomed timeline version of Karkat he used to know. His whole mood is wrong, he'd been shouting for one of the humans, he'd met multiple doomed versions of Eridan himself --

There's a long, blissful minute where Karkat might think Eridan's literally fucked off, but eventually he shuffles over to the railing. There is... a weirdly respectful amount of distance between them, although that's mostly by complete accident.

"...Um. Wwhat, uh. Wwhat happened? Before you wwoke up here." And, because he knows Karkat probably better than he realizes and can see where he's looking, "It doesn't wwork. You just wwake up back in your room the next day."

“OF COURSE THAT’S WHAT HAPPENS,” Karkat lets out an exasperated sigh and drapes an arm across the railing.
He is grateful for the change of topic at least.
He snorts bitterly. “WHICH ‘BEFORE’ DO YOU WANT TO KNOW? HOW I WAS FUCKING AROUND RIGHT BEFORE WAKING UP IN THIS AQUATIC SHITSCAPE? OR THE GENERAL FUCKING AROUND I WAS DOING SINCE AFTER...” He doesn’t know how to end that sentence.

Eridan had meant the ship, but it's... tempting to ask about the after part. If he asks, though, that's just gonna piss Karkat off more and he'll run off and start screeching to everyone about how shitty Eridan is and how shitty everything is, and --

"...Before the ship, I guess?" Although he really hopes the two conversations just dovetail together so he doesn't have to acknowledge the thing Karkat is also avoiding all mention of. "Did... I guess you guys figured somethin' out, judgin' from you shoutin' for one of the humans like some shouty idiot."

“YEAH. YOU COULD SAY THAT,” he sighs and tries to formulate an explanation in his head. “TO MAKE A VERY LONG STORY SHORT. THE HUMANS INITIATED THE SCRATCH AND CREATED THE NEW UNIVERSE. THEY GOT SEPARATED, SO STRIDER AND LALONDE ENDED UP WITH ME, TEREZI, KANAYA, AND GAMZEE. TECHNICALLY ARADIA AND SOLLUX ALSO LIVED BUT THEY STAYED BEHIND TO BE CREEPY UNDERWORLD GODS IN THE DREAM BUBBLES FOR SOME FUCKING REASON. SOLLUX USED THE LAST OF HIS STRENGTH TO CATAPULT THE METEOR THROUGH PARADOX SPACE INTO THE NEW UNIVERSE, BUT IT WOULD TAKE ONE AND A HALF SWEEPS TO GET THERE. I’D BEEN THROUGH THE MOST TEDIOUS HALF A SWEEP KNOWN TO TROLLKIND BEFORE WAKING UP HERE.”

In one ear, out the other. Even when he's trying to actively listen, Eridan can't help but let his mind wander back to how this all affects him... But then there's the depressing realization that it doesn't. At all. Even if they weren't doomed(?) offshoots, even if this was a real dream bubble or whatever -- he's dead, and there's no coming back from that.

Pretty much the one thing that does affect him at all is the fact that Sollux fucking survived. And he's back with Aradia, now, too? Like Feferi was nothing! God, that fills him with such rage! It's practically doubled back from black to platonic to black again.

"Of course that piss-blooded wworm livved," he growls. "Ugh. Wwhatevver. Wwhere does he evven get the -- wwhatevver!" He throws his hands up and repeats the word like he isn't the one who needs convincing. "I guess that dumb plan actually wworked after all. Still don't knoww wwhat a fuckin' Scratch is evven supposed t'be, but I guess it doesn't matter wwhat I knoww."

“ARE YOU FUCKING KIDDING ME RIGHT NOW?!” Karkat whips his head towards Eridan and glares daggers at him. “ALL OF THAT, AND ALL YOU COULD THINK OF IS HOW ANNOYING IT IS THAT SOLLUX ISN’T DEAD?? WHAT, YOU WANNA GO TROUNCE RIGHT OFF AND FINISH THE JOB? FUCK YOU. HE’S A PERSON, ERIDAN. HE’S MY FRIEND!”

Fuck, he hadn’t realized how much he missed Sollux until just now.

“YOU CAN CRY SCALEBEAST TEARS AT ME ALL YOU WANT ABOUT HOW YOU’RE A TOTALLY DIFFERENT GUY AND YOU JUST NEED ANOTHER CHANCE, BUT I’VE SEEN WHAT YOU REALLY ARE, AND I'M NOT IMPRESSED."

He jabs a finger towards Eridan. "YOU DIDN'T EVEN BOTHER TO ASK WHAT THE SCRATCH WAS EVEN ABOUT BEFORE DECIDING YOUR IDIOTIC GROVELING WOULD WORK BETTER. AND WHEN NOBODY LIKED THAT IDEA - WHICH OBVIOUSLY NO ONE WOULD - YOU JUST HAD TO RUIN EVERYTHING, DIDN'T YOU? YOU KNOW WHY YOU GOT THE TITLE 'THE PRINCE OF HOPE?' IT MEANS DESTROYER OF HOPE. AND THAT'S WHAT YOU DO. YOU DESTROY."

Eridan just kinda stands there and takes it? Not because he deserves it -- obviously, he doesn't, that's not even the discussion here -- but because Karkat is actually angry and Eridan never really knows how to handle Karkat when he's being anything other than amicably rancorous.

He tries to listen, really. Tries to actually internalize something from the shouting. But the more he says, the more biting his commentary, the worse it makes Eridan feel -- and the worse he feels, the less he wants to hear. Especially with that final, full-palm slap of ugly clarity. Karkat calls him the destroyer of hope and all he can think is why? Why the fuck did he have to -- why did he get that title, why was that his thing, and what kind of bullshit game construct develops a class that's designed to ruin everything!

He opens his mouth, ready to snap out that he is a different person, obviously, by virtue of being stuck here for months by himself -- but it's fuckin' pointless.

So instead, he glares at the horizon and destroys a couple more hopes. "Wwell, you're fuckin' stuck here wwith me. Forevver. Until your stupid fuckin' soul or wwhatevver gets sucked into the ship and you turn into a shitty ghost that folds towwels and cleans up after shitty humans. You're nevver goin' home, so evven if your plan wworks so much fuckin' better than mine, you're nevver gonna see it come to fruition."

The words feel good in the grossest possible way. He doesn't bother looking at Karkat. Let the shithead walk off and start tellin' everyone just how shitty he is. It's an easy expectation to live up to.

"Howw's that for the Prince'a Hope?"

Karkat has been aware since the second he shut his mouth that he probably shouldn’t have added that part about Eridan’s title. But in the moment, he was furious and all he could think of was using every weapon in his arsenal to verbally decimate his foe, and the title was the cheapest, quickest way to do it. The final nail in that bulky coffin of Eridan’s massive ego.

Still, the reaction stings.

“FINE,” he glares. “GREAT. I’M STUCK HERE FOREVER. AT LEAST I KNOW THAT THE ONLY FRIENDS I HAVE LEFT ARE GOING SOMEWHERE BETTER THAN ME.” At least that’s one thing he can say he got right, amidst his monumental pile of screw-ups.

“AND FOR WHAT IT’S WORTH, THE PLAN DID WORK. WHICH, IF YOU’D BOTHERED TO LISTEN TO A SINGLE FUCKING THING I SAID, YOU’D KNOW ALREADY.”

Until they die, too, because the whole fucking plan is stupid and pointless, and everyone knows the more convoluted a plan gets, the more likely it's going to go wrong! That's why his plan was better, because it was simple. It only relied on one unknown factor and that was a psychopathic woofbeast. Not asteroids or Sollux or dream bubbles or scratches.

So much for Keep It Simple, Stupid.

"And noww wwhat? You're all hurtlin' through the space between sessions, about to go an' wwreck some other group's chances at makin' a decent univverse?" An eyeroll. "Cool. More people to sacrifice to Fef's creepy fuckin' gods of the furthest goddamn ring. Wwould'a been better if wwe'd all just offed ourselvves wwhen wwe had the chance."

Somehow, that hits way harder.
A wave of dread swells through Karkat’s body.

Anyone would expect further shouting from him, but it doesn’t come.

“. . .FUCK YOU,” Karkat rasps under his breath. He turns and beelines off the deck back into the interior of the ship, covering his face so no one can see the red tears leaking from his eyes.

He hadn't even been trying, that time.

Karkat bolting from his presence is somehow more of a punch to the gut than the split-second of guilt he'd felt after murdering Kan. It sure as shit proves Karkat's point, though, doesn't it? Ruining hope really is all he's good at.

At least he's self-aware enough to know not to chase after him. Not... not right away. He'll give him a couple of hours to... cool off. Or something.

(It will probably be days before Eridan works up the courage to try talking to Karkat again.)

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TEST DRIVE MEME #8

1. but times have changed for sailors these days

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Tw: suicidal ideation

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I messed up the “sweeps” thing earlier. He’s been on the trip for a year, it’s a 3 year trip

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cw: suicidal ideation (something is wrong with these children)

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